A story of redemption, help, healing, and second chances of friendship across the centuries.

The Dedication(s):
To: Gail Baudino, (and the Elves of Malvern): Thanks for the Inspiration
to get me writing again, and your book's help and healing, "Alanae ea
yolisi, Elthia!"
This is also for Mimi "Mouse" Stewart, who passed from cancer.
(1954-2009)
To the friends of Mimi Stewart, nicknamed the "De Anza Rat Pack", for
your dedication, friendship and long lasting inspiration.
Rain:
It fell steadily upon the city and suburbs of San Jose, a promise of the
coming spring, but a cold, grudging one to be sure. The men repairing
the roof of the Art Forum building located on the sprawling campus of
De Anza College had given up shortly before noon. The business vendors
that had set up in the main quad admitted defeat only a little while
later, packing up their wares with numb fingers to trudge wearily into
the nearby Student Campus Center soaked and shivering on this Dark
December day.
Mimi "Mouse" Stewart made her way down a path in the Sciences Quad
(S-Quad). Wind now, the almost sleet stung her eyes and cheeks as she
paused to wipe her face on her sleeve, and casually, pulled up the hood
of her parka up a little further around herself. She had just arrived
by her ride share to the campus, and somehow with the rain, the cold
and the lack of people in the quad she had become thoroughly lost.
Sitting in her wheelchair under an overhang outside one of many
classrooms, she peered up through the drops searching for landmarks.
Robert, her fiancé, had mentioned many constructions to the aging
campus after her departure a few months ago, but surely, something had
to be familiar.
"Every time there is construction it makes this place crazy." Mimi
thought, and she shook her head in disgust, grimacing at the many
yellow barriers that littered the quad. The middle-aged woman had been
correct in her deduction, enduring many such occurrences over the
course of three years before her short absence.
As she sat under the overhang, she managed to make out the Minolta
Planetarium that poked up above the rooftops, and at last, the large
building of the Library that sat next to the main campus. Rolling
through the water and debris that flowed down the pathway, she took her
next turning, pushing her wheelchair down the common path with
confident strokes, quickly crossing the meadow that lay deserted in the
wet, smiling when she saw the center quad broad and familiar. She did
not see the piece of pavement that protruded from the ground, uprooted
from a large pine tree's roots that caught the leg of her chair, and
sent her sprawling. The blacktop was hard, cold, and unforgiving as she
lay sat half-stunned on the pavement. It was for the first time since
Mimi had been dropped off on campus she was not glad the quad was
empty. People intended to be on hand, when accidents happened and to
help as needed, but with no people, she knew there would be no help.
Mimi caught her breath, grimacing at the cold mud that now covered her,
and tried to struggle to her feet to reseat herself into her
wheelchair, but a sharp pain sent her back into the filth again.
"Oh damn." She said, managing to sit up. Even through the wet, she saw
the blood spot on the knee of her pants leg, and felt the burn of the
rash caused by the fall brush against the material of the fabric.
Swelling of her leg was already perceptible through the leg of her
trousers and rising for Mimi seemed to be out of the question. Crawling
was, at best doubtful and the prospect seemed bleak that she might have
sit here until security made their rounds. However, knowing security,
they all probably sat in the warm office, sipping coffee and forewent
the entire affair all together.
"This is just great, I, Mimi Stewart, the oldest student on campus." She
managed to mutter under her breath, "Dead from the cold and a broken
leg."
As she sat in the wet, she was unaware of a strange energy seemed to
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